


to be the best

by kakkoweeb



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, M/M, Popcorn, Scary Movies, Sleepovers, Sportsfest 2018, Video Game, idk how to tag the last one oof
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 01:54:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18436604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kakkoweeb/pseuds/kakkoweeb
Summary: Fills for Sportsfest 2018 Bonus Round 3: Superlatives1. Kozume Kenma (with Kuroo and Bokuto)2. Shiratorizawa Volleyball Club3. Nishinoya Yuu & Tanaka Ryuunosuke4. Oikawa Tooru/Ushijima Wakatoshi5. Kuroo Tetsurou & Yaku Morisuke





	1. playing the game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Ship/Character:** Kozume Kenma (with Kuroo and Bokuto)  
>  **Prompt:**  
>  [FASTEST VIDEO GAME SPEEDRUN]: Kozume Kenma  
>  **Notes:** the game is Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, if you’re not familiar! ~~play it~~

With a scream of utter fury, Kuroo picks up Bokuto’s laptop and starts to throw it out the window.  
  
“WHOA,  _whoawhoawhoa_ , Kuroo,  _no_ , Kuroo!” Bokuto scrambles off his spot on the bed and clings to Kuroo’s shirt, pulling himself high enough to keep his one final remaining working piece of technology from falling to its untimely death. His frantic movement lightly jostles Kenma leaning against the pillows with his PSP. “You need to calm down, okay? Just calm down. It’s just a game.”  
  
“ _It’s the worst game to ever exist,_ ”Kuroo yells in response, though he does relinquish his hold on the laptop and allow Bokuto to cradle it. He points an accusatory finger at the screen. “This guy is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen! Why is he half-naked in a pot? Why is he trying to get up a pile of junk with a hammer while he’s in a pot? Why does it matter to us what happens in his life?  _Why doesn’t he get out of the pot.”_  
  
“It’s the premise of the game, Kuro, stop yelling about the pot,” Kenma says.  
  
_“It’s so stupid.”_  
  
“Just say that you’re bad at games and move on, geez,” Bokuto says.  
  
“I’m not bad at games! This game is just terrible! Going around the fact that this idiot is inside a pot filled with water for no reason, the mountain doesn’t make any sense, and that hammer is an abomination! You move it a little and suddenly it’s launching the pot thirty feet into the air or pushing you off of the damn orange table until you’re falling back to the starting point. Where’s the  _Physics_  in all of this? It’s impossible!”  
  
“It’s not impossible,” Kenma says, his eyes glued to his own video game, probably one without a  _guy in a stupid pot_  as a protagonist. “You’re just getting too angry and impatient.”  
  
“Oh, and  _you’re_  the epitome of calm, are you? Fine,” Kuroo sneers, grabs the laptop out of Bokuto’s protective arms and places it in front of Kenma before snatching away the PSP, pausing the game so Kenma doesn’t murder him before he can prove his point. “You play, and let’s see how far you can get.”  
  
Rolling his eyes, Kenma sighs and positions himself in front of the screen, fits his hand over the mouse just to get this over with. “Fine.”  
  
Bokuto watches with great interest and Kuroo, with indignation, as Kenma randomly hops around the starting area, tests what each movement of the cursor results in, the unlikely fellow in the pot jumping up and back and forth without purpose and making those annoying, “Uup,” sounds that make Kuroo want to toss him into the trash can even with his pot. Kenma’s eyes are as dull as ever but they’re fixated on the hammer, tracing its patterns, gauging its strength, idenifying its faults, almost as if physically feeling how it connects to the mouse and to his hand.  
  
And then he moves.  
  
His swings are calculated but powerful and without a hint of hesitation, the hammer moving in graceful arcs and using every obstacle to its advantage, in the most efficient ways possible. He makes it past the lower parts of the junk mountain in a flash, occasionally slipping but never falling back down where he came, and when he manages to squeeze himself through the vertical ascent sandwiched between two boulders, the gaping Bokuto is leaning towards the screen and Kuroo isn’t far off, only his owlish eyes are more of offense than amazement.  
  
It doesn’t take him too long (certainly, not as long as Kuroo took) to get back to the orange table where Kuroo plummeted to square one and then get past it, and once he does, he finally stops, looks up at Kuroo wearing an expression that’s only half a gloat. “There. I got you back to where you were earlier. Calm down and finish the game.”  
  
Kuroo stays silent for a while, before he picks up Kenma and starts to throw him out the window.  
  
“KUROO, NO!” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a really late cross-post, once again. there's a whole bunch more to go. special thanks to those who commented on this fill back in sf2018, dreamwidth users marks and booksong, who was also the prompter!
> 
> || [tumblr](http://kakkoweeb.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/diecrotic) | [writing updates](http://kakkoweeb.tumblr.com/writing) | [instagram bc why not](https://www.instagram.com/diecrotic/) ||


	2. punishing the weak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Ship/Character:** Shiratorizawa Volleyball Club  
>  **Prompt:**  
>  Most likely to fall asleep first at the sleepover: Filler's choice  
>  **Notes:** the prompter put the additional tag, "Whoever falls asleep first gets prank'd so hard, bro", so that's what's going to happen here. or is it?

With a single, loud clap Satori faces the entirety of the volleyball club regulars and offers them a bright, excited grin. “Welcome, friends,” he begins, and spreads his arms out wide enough to try and span the entirety of his bedroom, “to my humble abode, and to the first ever Shiratorizawa volleyball club sleepover!”  
  
“Which is pretty weird, considering we technically all sleep in the same building anyway,” Eita chimes in.  
  
“Your ‘humble abode’ looks the same as all of ours,” Reon adds.  
  
“Don’t fight me so early into the night! The party’s just about to start!” Satori says, grabbing the stiff-looking Tsutomu and “I don’t want to be here”-looking Kenjirou by the shoulders and sitting them down on the beanbags strategically-placed right in front of the movie laptop. “Now everyone make yourself comfortable while I lay down the ground rules.”  
  
“Rules?” Taichi questions. “For a sleepover?”  
  
“Yes! But don’t worry. They’re pretty simple,” Satori says, bringing a finger up right in front of his sly smile that leaves the rest of the team recoiling and considering making a break for their own rooms (save for Wakatoshi, of course, and whether it’s his bravery or the fact that he never really knows what’s going on is still unclear to everyone on the team). “Rule number 1: training doesn’t start until late tomorrow, so we all have to stay up as late as humanly possible! And whoever falls asleep first—”  
  
A bottle of peanut butter materializes from out of nowhere and into his hand, and he opens and sniffs it for added effect. “—automatically signs an unwritten agreement, stating that he is ready and willing to be prime prank target of the night. Got it?”  
  
“Can I leave?” Kenjirou asks.  
  
“No, rule number 2, you can’t leave.” Satori ruffles up his hair. “Let’s all have fun tonight, guys!”  
  
Hayato cheers and comes in for a high five and everyone else looks determined to stay awake for as long as possible, but Eita can already feel himself deflating.  
  
They start off with a game of Truth or Dare using a bottle of Potari that Satori’d apparently been hoarding for the occasion. It lands on Kenjirou more than once and he always quickly picks Truth, with no hesitation admits that he’d kick Tsutomu off the team if he had the chance and that he thinks Reon will make a good husband. Hayato picks Dare and effortlessly stands on his hands for ten seconds. Satori is really good at picking out embarrassing questions and dares for Eita in particular and somehow evades the tip of the bottle every time. Reon thinks Wakatoshi will make a good husband. Taichi’s just glad that how disturbed he is is driving away how sleepy he ought to be.  
  
The movie doesn’t threaten to change this. For all his regular insanity, Satori actually has a pretty excellent taste in movies and chooses a classic horror that somehow none of them have watched. The scenes are gripping, the ghost nighmare-inducing, and though horror is Hayato’s strong suit he doesn’t think he’ll lose interest with the way Tsutomu’s subconsciously gripping his arm and using him as a meat shield. Hell, he doesn’t think anyone will lose interest when an epic chase sequence begins.  
  
But they all only find themselves  _truly_  awake when the sound of light snoring accompanies the movie’s suspenseful silence.  
  
“Ooh,” Satori coos immediately, “we have our target! Who’s sleeping—”  
  
Everything stops when they find Wakatoshi in the back of the group, his arms crossed and his head lolling over his own shoulder, his face so relaxed it’s almost peaceful, almost cancels out the screams of the damned coming from the film. The entire group falls silent, alternate gazing between the peanut butter and their captain’s completely relaxed state, and not a single soul moves, or so much as cracks a smile.  
  
That is, until Eita knowingly grins. “So, Satori,” he says, “let’s see you execute the ultimate prank on your prime target.”  
  
It doesn’t seem like anyone is breathing, all of them staring intently at Satori who looks paler than he did when the movie protagonist’s friend was decapitated. His round eyes blink steadily as they watch Wakatoshi’s slowly heaving chest and slightly-parted lips, until he meekly hugs his knees and turns back to the TV.  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Semisemi,” he says, now evidently hyper-focused on the uninteresting scene playing onscreen. “We should let Wakatoshi-kun be. We aren’t cruel people, right?”  
  
More than a few of them roll their eyes, but at least once the film is over Satori leaves them  _all_  be once they one by one start dropping dead right next to Wakatoshi’s warm, comfortable sleeping form.  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let wakatoshi sleep
> 
> special thanks to the prompter, dw user strangexwaters, who also left a comment!
> 
> || [tumblr](http://kakkoweeb.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/diecrotic) | [writing updates](http://kakkoweeb.tumblr.com/writing) | [instagram bc why not](https://www.instagram.com/diecrotic/) ||


	3. rolling the dice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Ship/Character:** Nishinoya Yuu & Tanaka Ryuunosuke  
>  **Prompt:**  
>  Most likely to shriek and drop their popcorn at the cinema: Filler's pick  
>  **Notes:** a generator made the horror movie title and i love it

“Release the dice!” Noya commands, and Tanaka complies immediately, opening his clamped hands and unleashing the dice (stolen from one of Saeko’s older game boards) onto the carpeted movie theatre floor, bouncing a good few times before finally coming to a stop, three dots now visible on its surface.  
  
“And we have a winner!” Noya cries triumphantly while Tanaka terribly mimics the sound of a boxing ring bell. He picks the die up, jogs back up to the ticket counter, eyes scanning the board above the cashier’s head for the show lined up with Cinema 3. “The feature film for tonight’s Random Movie is…The Lord of the Lord! Sounds kinda weird, but the poster looks interesting.”  
  
“Isn’t that the movie Kinoshita said he likes?”  
  
“I think so.”  
  
“But the only kinds of movies he actually likes are the ridiculously scary ones.”  
  
“Yeah,” Noya agrees, and after but a moment grins wider. “Aww, I get it, you don’t like scary movies, do you, Ryu?”  
  
Tanaka crosses his arms and frowns, but his eyes are stuck to the threatening-looking movie poster off to the side and it looks more like he’s embracing himself for comfort more than anything. “They’re fine.”  
  
“Nope, you’re totally scared right now and the movie hasn’t even started!”  
  
“I’m not!”  
  
“No, it’s okay, Ryu, I get it,” Noya says, his grin still toothy, tossing the dice up and catching it, “we’re all afraid of something. We can roll again, if you want.”  
  
“When have we ever rolled again? That’s against the rules of Random Movie Night! I’m not afraid of some scary movie. In fact, I bet you’ll be more terrified than I am— _will be_. You’ll be more terrified than I’ll be!”  
  
“Oho, you’re on. I bet that you’ll be more afraid than me, that you’re gonna scream,  _and_  that you’re gonna drop your bucket of popcorn! Loser has to pay for next movie night’s tickets. Deal?”  
  
Tanaka’s mouth says, “Deal!” but his heart says  _oh, shit_.  
  
Still, he puts on a brave face while they located their seats in the theater, keeps it up until the lights dim. He isn’t going to be scared by some dumb movie; it has two ‘lords’ in the title. It probably isn’t going to be that good. Maybe he’ll even sleep through it because it’s so boring and ineffective, he (hopes) thinks, as the dark opening scene rolls in featuring two oblivious teenagers wandering around an archaic cemetery. Maybe he’ll be so uninterested—he holds his breath when a cloaked figure passes in the background of the shot—that the movie’ll be over in the blink of an eye, that— _oh, god, they just died, okay_ —he’ll be more engrossed in his popcorn and by the time anything scary comes he’ll have none left to drop and Noya’ll lose the bet and—  
  
The title screen flashes with a heart-stopping  _dun_  sound effect.  
  
Tanaka screeches, his hands jerking up and flying to his ears as he squeezes his eyes shut and curls in on himself. That is, until he remembers he’s currently in the middle of a wager that’ll cost him days’ worth of allowance and he forces his eyes open, checks the floor for any dropped popcorn. Surprisingly, there isn’t any.  
  
But before he can breathe a sigh of relief, he realizes his hands where the popcorn should’ve been are vacant, and he looks up just in time to see the bucket plummeting in mid-air, several pieces raining down from the heavens a few at a time, until it finally falls—  
  
—straight onto Noya’s head.  
  
The current scene on the screen is silent, and so is the audience, most if not all of them—Tanaka included—busier watching the uncharacteristically quiet short high schooler wearing a bucket over his head and not moving.  
  
Noya snorts, and then laughs hard enough to get the both of them kicked out of the theater.   
  
“Technically I didn’t drop the bucket,” Tanaka reasons as they head home, feeling nothing but relief that they’re finally out of there. “I threw it up and gravity pulled it back down. That means I won the bet.”  
  
“You know what, that was so fucking hilarious that I don’t even care,” Noya says, still laughing, wiping the tears from his eyes. “You win, man. Next week’s movie’s on me. Just don’t ever stop being the sensational guy you are.”  
  
“Deal!” Tanaka says, wholeheartedly, and they shake hands.  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so it was tanaka. but also, technically, not
> 
> special thanks to the prompter, dw user equinoxchick, and to the commenters onceakoala and equinoxchick again!
> 
> || [tumblr](http://kakkoweeb.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/diecrotic) | [writing updates](http://kakkoweeb.tumblr.com/writing) | [instagram bc why not](https://www.instagram.com/diecrotic/) ||


	4. educating the inept

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Ship/Character:** Oikawa Tooru/Ushijima Wakatoshi  
>  **Prompt:**  
>  [Worst at Winking]: Fillers choice  
>  **Notes:** who do you think it's gonna be

Though a few years ago he never would have admitted it (and he barely wants to now), Tooru thinks Ushiwaka is actually pretty attractive in his own way. Sure, he isn’t charismatic in the slightest and has about the same emotional range as a peanut but even just his upset-looking resting face is captivating, how intense his eyes are and how set his jaw always is coupled with that smooth, booming voice may well be his own unconventional version of perfection.  
  
Still, it’d be nice to see him doing  _actual_  attractive person things sometimes. Like smiling. And since Tooru’s practically the only one he actually talks to on a regular basis outside of class, he’s probably in the best position to get Ushiwaka to try.  
  
He decides to one day, during one of their Tuesday study sessions (that Tooru can’t ever remember agreeing to, but hey, here he is) at the main library. He spots a group of girls who whisper about him as he passes by and he shoots them a smile, accidentally throwing in a little wink there out of habit (from all the smiles and winks he’s sent over to Iwa-chan right before he’s punched), and they disperse, clutching their faces and chests and squealing amongst themselves like a bunch of excited puppies. Tooru swallows then— _why did I do that_ —and enters the library with his head down.  
  
But when he finds his way next to Ushiwaka, he turns the incident into an idea.  
  
“Hey, Ushiwaka,” he whispers.  
  
Ushiwaka looks at him, eyebrow raised as if to say,  _what did I tell you about talking in the library last week, Oikawa? You don’t_.  
  
Tooru ignores this subtle message. “Do you know how to wink?”  
  
“Wink?” he whispers back. “Like this?”  
  
He shuts both eyes and quickly opens them.  
  
Tooru rolls his eyes. This is going to be a long afternoon. “No, not blink. Wink! One eye, to try and look cool and appealing.”  
  
“Oh, you mean what you do all the time with Iwaizumi and your other friends.”  
  
“Yeah,” Tooru agrees, wonders how Ushiwaka even knew that for but a brief moment before taking his textbook—taking care to place the bookmark on the proper page, because he’d never be forgiven otherwise—and placing it neatly on the table, ready to start another type of lesson. “Just really quickly blink but only using a single eye, and throw a smile in there. If you wink without smiling it looks weird.”  
  
“Why is this so important?”  
  
“Oh, come on, don’t you want to learn new things? How are you going to get a girlfriend if you don’t know how to at least act cute around anybody? Go on, try it.”  
  
Ushiwaka’s frown doesn’t shift much as he lets out a sigh of resignation. “I’m not really interested in finding a girlfriend—” Tooru’s eyebrows rise “—but if this means so much to you…”  
  
He turns his head completely towards Tooru, and all at once, he’s smoothly winking a single eye and turning up a single corner of his mouth, perfect timing and perfect sync, and Tooru’s heart just about  _stops._  
  
_That looks so good._  
  
Both his eyes are open and normally blinking now but it takes the small, suave smile a while to completely fade, and Ushiwaka never takes his eyes off Tooru even when he’s back to his regular dull poker face. “Was that all right?”  
  
Tooru can feel the extreme heat on his cheeks from the weight of the gaze and the memory of the  _incredible, what the hell, why is he so good at everything_  wink, and he aggressively picks up his bag and pulls all of his textbooks out as he stammers out a response. “Uhh, pretty good, but it could use, um, a little more work. Yeah. Uhh, you should, um, practice it around—around me some more. Like a lot more. So you can improve it.”  
  
His eyes are on his notes now (though he isn’t reading) but he swears he hears Ushiwaka laugh at him—short, almost just a breath, but completely amused. “Okay,” he whispers as he reclaims his text book.  
  
Tooru doesn’t get to study much that afternoon. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Worst at Winking]: NOT USHIWAKA
> 
> special thanks to the prompter, dw user buni_emoji, and to towine who left a comment!
> 
> || [tumblr](http://kakkoweeb.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/diecrotic) | [writing updates](http://kakkoweeb.tumblr.com/writing) | [instagram bc why not](https://www.instagram.com/diecrotic/) ||


	5. calling out the asshole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Ship/Character:** Kuroo Tetsurou & Yaku Morisuke  
>  **Prompt:**  
>  Always This Kind: Kuroo Tetsurou  
>  **Notes:** kuroo gets Called Out

Kuroo isn’t in the room when Morisuke wakes up that morning, settled nicely in the guest futon they’d set up hours earlier, after Kuroo so persistently declared that  _‘1 AM is the last straw, you need to sleep, Yakkun, this is my project so I have to work on it more hours than you’_. Till now he isn’t quite sure how sound the logic is, but he does know that it’s incredibly stupid, given that Kuroo’d asked him to come over to help with homework that his classmates had pretty much abandoned him on. He was completely willing to stay up all night too, but he’d been practically shoved in bed and sang to sleep (not well) and it’s too late for him to take his rest back now.  
  
He stands up, briefly arranges his hair in front of the mirror, and then heads out to immediately find Kuroo standing by the dining room counter and humming an unrecognizable song while he taps his foot. Morisuke isn’t sure if this is a real habit of his or not.  
  
“Uh, morning?” he warily calls.  
  
Kuroo turns to him with a, “Good morning, Yakkun!” and unnaturally dark circles under his tired eyes.  
  
“Whoa!” Morisuke cries, takes a few steps back. “Geez, you look dead. Are you all right?”  
  
“The state of my face could use a little work, but I’ll live, I think.”  
  
“That’s not something you’re supposed to just  _think_ ,” Morisuke scolds, frowning. “How’s the project?”  
  
“Accomplished and in good shape.”  
  
“Okay, good.” It would’ve been accomplished and in good shape a little earlier into the night if Kuroo hadn’t forced him to sleep, Morisuke knows, but he holds his tongue, peers instead at whatever Kuroo’s accomplishing this time on the counter. “What’re you doing?”  
  
“Making lunch,” Kuroo casually answers.  
  
Morisuke blinks at the inhuman amount of carrots that he’s slicing. “You better not be compensating for your lack of sleep with tons of food; you’re gonna throw up.”  
  
“I’m not eating all of this! Half of it’s for you.”  
  
“What? You’re making me lunch? Why?”  
  
“I’m always this kind,” Kuroo proudly states, briefly turning away from his handiwork to dramatically place a hand over his chest, but like that doesn’t completely piss Morisuke off in more ways than one, his stupid smile fades and he goes right back to arranging vegetables so elegantly it shouldn’t be possible for a teenage boy.  
  
And Morisuke’s just about had it. “You know what? You are.”  
  
Kuroo looks at him like he’s just killed a man. The bags under his eyes make the expression look deranged.  
  
“You asked me to come here because you decided to shoulder a project that no one else wants to do making it look like you bribed me but you didn’t want me to help after midnight because you thought I needed sleep, like you don’t. You’re always helping Kenma with  _his_  homework no matter how much extra work your advanced class and cram school give you. You were late to first period last week because you helped an old lady cross the road—”  
  
“Why are you telling me this?” Kuroo asks, genuinely panicked.  
  
“I’m not done. You gave a blocker from a rival school advice because you want Coach Nekomata to see the Battle at the Garbage Dump before he retires. You’re always going around acting like the King of Provocation but when you actually provoke anyone you feel bad. Whenever you tell people you’re kind, your face makes you look like an asshole so they take it as a joke, but it’s true. It’s true. You’re kind.”  
  
“I’m—”  
  
“You’re kind, Kuroo. I helped you with homework for like four hours, not even straight, and you’re making me an entire lunch box. You’re always encouraging people—seriously, do you think Kenma would’ve hung around you this long if you were anything but  _genuinely_  good to him? Get used to it, Kuroo. You really are  _always this kind_.”  
  
The silence that follows tells Morisuke just how loud his voice had been, but it doesn’t matter, not when Kuroo is standing there absolutely scandalized and holding a nicely-made rice ball with his ears getting redder by the second. “I—” he says, looks like he desperately needs a drink of water. He hides his face turning around and pretending to wonder where to put the rice ball in the lunch box. “I’m never inviting you over ever again.”  
  
Morisuke snorts. “Keep telling yourself that. Should I make breakfast?”  
  
“Already made some. It’s under that food cover.”  
  
_“Oh my god.”_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> special thanks to the prompter, tookumade, who also left a comment! and that's the last for this cross-posted compilation. to anyone who got emails about this and was bothered, i apologize.
> 
> || [tumblr](http://kakkoweeb.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/diecrotic) | [writing updates](http://kakkoweeb.tumblr.com/writing) | [instagram bc why not](https://www.instagram.com/diecrotic/) ||


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